The Quants: How a New Breed of Math Whizzes Conquered Wall

The Quants: How a New Breed of Math Whizzes Conquered Wall Street and Nearly Destroyed It

With the immediacy of todayâ€™s NASDAQ close and the timeless power of a Greek tragedy,Â The QuantsÂ is at once a masterpiece of explanatory journalism, a gripping tale of ambition and hubris, and an ominous warning about Wall Streetâ€™s future.Â

In March of 2006, four of the worldâ€™s richest men sipped champagne in an opulent New York hotel. They were preparing to compete in a poker tournament with million-dollar stakes, but those numbers meant nothing to them. They were accustomed to risking billions. Â
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On that night, these four men and their cohorts were the new kings of Wall Street. Â Muller, Griffin, Asness, and Weinstein were among the best and brightest of a new breed, the quants. Over the prior twenty years, this species of math whiz--technocrats who make billions not with gut calls or fundamental analysis but with formulas and high-speed computers--had usurped the testosterone-fueled, kill-or-be-killed risk-takers whoâ€™d long been the alpha males the worldâ€™s largest casino. The quants helped create a digitized money-trading machine that could shift billions around the globe with the click of a mouse. Few realized, though, that in creating this unprecedented machine, men like Muller, Griffin, Asness and Weinstein had sowed the seeds for historyâ€™s greatest financial disaster. Â
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Drawing on unprecedented access to these four number-crunching titans, The Quants tells the inside story of what they thought and felt in the days and weeks when they helplessly watched much of their net worth vaporize--and wondered just how their mind-bending formulas and genius-level IQâ€™s had led them so wrong, so fast.Â
Country USA
Brand Currency
Manufacturer Crown Currency
Binding Paperback
ItemPartNumber 31199868
Color Black
ReleaseDate 2011-01-25
UnitCount 1
EANs 9780307453389

Country	USA
Brand	Currency
Manufacturer	Crown Currency
Binding	Paperback
ItemPartNumber	31199868
Color	Black
ReleaseDate	2011-01-25
UnitCount	1
EANs	9780307453389

The Quants: How a New Breed of Math Whizzes Conquered Wall Street and Nearly Destroyed It

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